Friday, 3 June 2016

Non-voters being disenfranchised in Ohio

In the latest attempt by
a state to disenfranchise voters, Ohio residents are finding thatif
they haven't voted in the past six years, they will be purged from
the voting rolls.

With election day fast
approaching, a renewed focus is being put on the fact that Ohio has
removed tens of thousands of voters from registration lists for not
having voted since 2008. While the number of voters that have been
purged statewide is unclear, in Ohio's three biggest counties that
include Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, at
least 144,000 voters have been removed Reuters reports.
With both Republican an Democratic officials presiding over the
program throughout the last twenty years, it doesn't seem to be
driven by one party or another. On the other hand, Reuters
finds that the purge of voters in Democratic leaning neighborhoods is
at roughly twice the rate as in Republican neighborhoods.
Reuters also found that neighborhoods having a higher proportion of
poor, African-American residents are hit the hardest. That's because
residents of relatively affluent Republican leaning neighborhoods are
more likely to vote in both congressional elections and presidential
contests historical turnouts show. Democrats are less likely to vote
in mid-term elections and thus are more at risk of falling off the
rolls.

In the heavily
African-American neighborhoods near downtown Cincinnati, more
than 10% of registered voters have been removed due to inactivity
since 2012. In
suburban Indian Hill, only 4% have been purged.
Overall, 30,000 voters have been removed due to inactivity since 2012
in Hamilton County, which is a larger figure than Obama's margin of
victory that year.

"It's
absolutely unfair"
said Donna Porter-Jones, an organizer at Amos Project, an interfaith
group that aims to register 30,000 voters from some of Cincinnati's
poorest neighborhoods.

Ohio Secretary of State
Jon Husted, a Republican, says that canceling registrations for
voters who missed three straight federal elections helps keep voting
rolls current, and since 2011, Ohio has cleared out more than 2
million records of people who have moved or died. Critics of the
move, such as Kathleen Clyde, a Democratic state representative, say
that "you
shouldn't be struck of your right to vote because you skipped an
election."
- most states only remove voters from the rolls if they have died or
moved to a new address.

Husted, on the
other hand, believes that "if
this is really an important thing to you in your life, voting, you
probably would have done so within a six-year period. Those
who don't vote over a six year period or respond to a postcard mailed
to their address have
only themselves to blame."

Alas, while that may be a
true statement, recognizing someone's right to vote, no matter how
infrequently, should be something that is important to elected
officials - but we digress.

This is
critically important, because not only does it disenfranchise voters,
Ohio is a key swing state in presidential elections, and has backed
the winner in every presidential election since 1960. Ohio
residents who find themselves removed from voting lists must
re-register at least 30 days before an election, and if voters who
are purged fail to re-register, it could potentially mean the
difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as president.

Four civil liberties
groups sued to end the practice last month, arguing that it violates
federal law and unfairly
targets low-income and minority voters. Voting
rights advocates say they are concerned that many infrequent voters
who helped drive turnout to a record in the 2008 presidential
election won't be able to vote in this year's likely matchup between
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

* * *

In places such
as Kansas and
Ohio, it's difficult to understand (or perhaps not) how this type of
legislation is allowed to pass and continue. Just
as Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe singed a bill that allows
convicted felons to vote again,
these are all tricks to either include or exclude voters in order to
gain a political upper hand, and it is being played right out in the
open for all of the nation to see.